Find the missing dollar

Question

Three friends eat at a restaurant and finally ask for the bill. They pay the 75 dollars by dividing it equally (so they spend 25 dollars per person.) The waiter takes the money to the owner, who, in a generous mood, offers a 5 dollar discount. But the waiter turns out to be morally suspect, so he pockets 2 dollars and divides the 3 dollars amongst the three customers equally. So, in conclusion, the cost to each customer was 24 dollars. Therefore total customer cost is 24x3 or 72 dollars. The waiter kept 2 dollars, bringing the total to 74, so where is the last dollar? I feel that some semantic trickery is at play here, but I can't find it...

Answer 1

It does not make much sense to add the $72\$$ and the $2\$$. Each customer paid $24\$$ ($=25-1$), so the waiter has $72\$$, two of which he pockets. The owner is left with $70\$$ for the food.

Answer 2

There's actually nothing strange in my opinion, the mistake is to assume 75 to be the cost. The cost indeed is $75-5+2 = 72$ which is $\$24$ per head.